scary water bill

[dahdahdahdancer.livejournal.com]

My latest water bill nearly gave me a heart attack. There's no way I could have used as much cubic feet of H2O as the bill claims. I've just now written a letter to the S'ville Water Dept (as the bill says to do if one wishes to dispute it) - but I was wondering if anyone else in the LJ community has dealt with this kind of problem before. How easy was it for you to get justice (and a lower, accurate bill)? Some details - a new meter was installed a month into the 4-month billing period. I'm being waaay overcharged for the first month, under the old meter. New meter readings are fine.

Comments

[freedmam.livejournal.com]

our condo association (6 units) paid a 12k bill about a year ago. We went through a hearing and didn't get anywhere. They are evil. We had the option of hiring a lawyer...but we just wanted it done. They claimed we hadn't had a real reading in 10 years and this was the differential. It sucked. Good luck...

[dahdahdahdancer.livejournal.com]

omg - outrageous! I'm so sorry. My own bill is double what I usually pay for 4-month usage for 2 apartments (I own a 2-family house), still pricey but nowhere near the tab your condo assoc had to deal with. Wow.

[siderea]

They claimed we hadn't had a real reading in 10 years and this was the differential.

There's a 6 month max on that in this state. You should have fought.

[latvianchick.livejournal.com]

We had the same problem in Cambridge (sorry, not immediately applicable). They resolved it with minimal hassle. The meter was faulty - which is why the city wanted to replace it in the first place - and they just took the charge off when we called. Good luck!

[masswich.livejournal.com]

2 possibilities- the good one would be that the old meter was faulty, and overcharged you. The bad one, which is unfortunately more likely, is that they did a final check on the old meter reading vs. the "estimated" readings they have been charging you, perhaps for years. And the actual reading was much higher than what you would get if you added all the estimated readings up. Therefore, a huge hit at the end.

Some slightly better news - you can sometimes pay it off over time (although I think you pay some interest), and the new meter will never do this because they read it from the outside.

[squirrelitude]

The bad one, which is unfortunately more likely, is that they did a final check on the old meter reading vs. the "estimated" readings they have been charging you, perhaps for years.

Another commenter said there's a 6 month limitation on that.

[arcanology.livejournal.com]

Actually, it's really easy for one person to use thousands of dollars of water if they have a leaking toilet. If your toilet always makes noise, it's you. If you really want to be sure it's not you turn off the fill valves and see if the toilets drain.

We've had this happen several times in my condo building, and it has not been the water company, it has been a condo owner who didn't notice that their toilet sounded like running water all the time.

Aside from the toilet though there isn't really anything in your house that can waste that much water without flooding you out.

[boblothrope.livejournal.com]

"If your toilet always makes noise, it's you. If you really want to be sure it's not you turn off the fill valves and see if the toilets drain."

Turning off the supply and checking if the tank drained would show you if there's a problem with the flapper. But it wouldn't diagnose the other common toilet problem: a fill valve/float problem which continuously fills the tank above the overflow tube height.

Dye tablets will detect either problem. Or you can watch/listen carefully.

[siderea]

Step one is contact the utility and contest it.

Step two, if that doesn't work, is to contact the MA Department of Public Utilities, Consumer Division. They have a web page and a hotline phone number and everything.

There are legal limits about how many estimates they can do before they are required to do a real read, precisely to protect consumers from the "Oh, we failed to bill you correctly for the last three years, have a five figure make-up bill" BS. They can't do that. The DPU will explain that to them if necessary; they are empowered by the state to force the utility company to forgive the bill.

[dahdahdahdancer.livejournal.com]

This is great information. Thank you so much! I checked my past year's water bills and none of them indicate that they were an estimate. But - my gas bill has been estimated for more than a year - and the gas company blew me off when I set up an appt for someone to come and change the meter, etc. I fear what the "real" gas reading could be once I reschedule the appt - knowing there's a 6-month cap is a bit of a relief.

[muffyjo]

FWIW, you can actually read your own gas meter to see how it compares to the estimate. It's not all that difficult. Finding the meter may be the hardest part, after that, it's pretty straightforward reading the number from left to right. Write down the number and then compare it to what you see on the bill.

[masswich.livejournal.com]

I've never heard of a six-month limit on these things. In some ways it would make sense. But I can imagine it could be abused if someone, for example, kept refusing to send in their readings or allow someone in the house to read the meter.

[jlauspitz.livejournal.com]

one advantage of the new meters is that the system now reports unusual water usage, and the City will give you an alert call.

[bombardiette.livejournal.com]

This happened to a friend of mine at his rental property where we used to reside. He freaked out thinking that new tenants above us were having pool parties in their tub or something, but when I read the bill, I noticed teeny tiny print that said, "Suspected water leak". He hadn't even noticed it. It's so small and in such an obscure place, I bet most people don't see it.

Check your bill carefully to see if it's been annotated there.

[vonelftinhaus.livejournal.com]

Please let us know if you get any responses regarding this issue from the city